1. Set it and forget it.

Set up a monthly subscription, give yourself a high-five, and know your money is going where it is needed.

2. Equitable support.

Your donation is split evenly among every democratic nominee for State Legislature.
We don’t play favorites.

3. No middle person.

Your donation goes directly to each candidate — not the party accounts.

Subscribe to a better Missouri,
for as little as one penny per State House district and one nickel per State Senate district:

$2.48 / month

$9.92 / month

$19.84 / month

$49.60 / month

$99.20 / month

Other amount

$
/ month

Enter whatever amount you like. If necessary, we will round it down
to be an exact multiple of $2.48 so that it divides
evenly between 248 House and Senate campaigns.
We've lowered your donation amount a little so that it
divides evenly between 248 House and Senate campaigns.

Why such a strange amount?
Because all 163 seats in the Missouri House of Representatives, as well as 17 seats in the Missouri Senate,
are up for election in 2018. Missouri’s Senate districts are five times the population size of its
House districts, so we’re sending them five times as many pennies.
5 × 17 = 85, and 85 + 163 = 248. Voila! A fully funded slate of
Democrats for less per month than the cost of a pumpkin spice latte.

Who we are.

Jonathan Zucker
Founder

Jonathan Zucker, Founder

Jonathan Zucker was the first COO and second CEO of ActBlue. Prior to that, he served the DNC as
National Director of Operations for Finance during the 2003-2004 presidential cycle. More recently,
he has founded or advised several political tech start-ups, including Democracy Engine, ruck.us, and Crowdpac.
LinkedIn Profile

Michele Hornish
Co-Founder and State Project Director

Michele Hornish, Co-Founder and State Project Director

Michele Hornish is a St. Louis resident and the founder of the political action site Small Deeds Done.
A lawyer by training, Michele clerked for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and was the
Associate General Counsel for the Illinois State Treasurer. She is also a certified mediator and
mediation trainer for the Chicago Center for Conflict Resolution.
LinkedIn Profile

We are the group of people behind It Starts Today, which has already raised hundreds of thousands
of dollars to fund every single Democratic nominee for US House and Senate races in 2018.
We want to bring the success we’ve seen there to Missouri. We can do that, with your help.

Why are we doing this?

Decades of neglect have taken a toll on Missouri Democrats. Once a purple bellwether state, Missouri
is now a GOP trifecta. So it’s tempting to focus all of our attention on a handful of districts
that might be “winnable” — but that strategy leaves some of the candidates that need
the most support in the dust.

60% of Missouri has seen nothing but GOP candidates for cycle upon cycle. Democrats running in those
districts have little infrastructure to rely on and significant fundraising challenges to overcome.
With no support, they become just a name on a ballot, abandoned and unable to spread a message about
common-sense policies to the people who need to hear about them most. Activists in those districts
are left without a cause to rally around, and voters are left without a real choice.

Featured on

Press coverage

Privacy Policy

It Starts Today is committed to respecting your privacy and protecting your personal information. We’ve tried to keep this Privacy Policy as simple as possible. Please note, when we refer to our Site, we mean the website http://itstarts.today (and any subdomain thereof), which is operated by It Starts Today, a nonprofit federally registered political committee.

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Personal Information means information you provide to us that specifically identifies you (such as your name, address, email address, or billing information). Personal Information does not include aggregate information, which is data we collect about the use of our Site or about a group or category of services or users, from which individual identities or other personal information has been removed.

WHAT DO WE COLLECT?

Personal Information may be collected in a number of ways when you visit It Starts Today. We collect information you voluntarily provide to us, such as when you make a donation, send us an email, sign-up to receive email or updates, connect through a social feed, fill out a form, or request information. Such information may include Personal Information.

Campaign finance law and regulations also require us to collect certain Personal Information from those who donate.

When you use It Starts Today, some information is may be automatically collected, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your operating system, the browser type, the address of a referring website, and your activity on our Site. We treat this information as Personal Information if we combine it with or link it to any of the identifying information mentioned above. Otherwise, it is used in the aggregate only, without personal identifiers.

We may also automatically collect certain information through the use of cookies or web beacons. Cookies are small data files stored on your hard drive at the request of a website. Among other things, cookies help us improve our Site and your experience. For example, we use cookies to identify you so that, for example, when you return to our site, if you've already made a donation, you don't have to re-enter certain information. If we link cookies to any personally identifying information, we will treat this information as Personal Information. If you wish to block, erase, or be warned of cookies, please refer to your browser manufacturer to learn how to do so. However, if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect certain features on our Site. Web beacons are small, invisible graphic images that may be used on It Starts Today or in emails relating to It Starts Today to monitor traffic on our Site and to understand how people are using our Site and our various products and services when they are offered on third party sites.

The Site may contain links to other web sites. It Starts Today is not responsible for the privacy practices of other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our Site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This Policy applies solely to information collected by our Site.

WHAT WE DO WITH YOUR INFORMATION

We use your Personal Information to facilitate your use of the Site. We may over time use your email address to let you know about new services on our Site, or information about political issues, candidates and elections that may be of interest to you.

We do not sell, rent or otherwise share your Personal Information with any third parties except in the following specific circumstances:

Compliance with Law. We may preserve or disclose your Personal Information if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation, or legal request; to protect the safety of any person; to address fraud, security, or technical issues; or to protect It Starts Today’s rights or property. You should also be aware that we, and the eventual recipients of your donations to Democratic nominees, are required to file public reports that contain some Personal Information with the Federal Election Commission or state campaign finance regulators.

Functionality. Some of the tools and capabilities you will want to use on It Starts Today are provided by third parties. In those circumstances, we may share your information with our affiliates or sub-contractors to facilitate providing you the service you have requested. In all cases, your information will be protected by this Privacy Policy or, should their policy apply to your information, we will provide you an explicit opportunity to agree to their Privacy Policy prior to using the service you have requested. Specifically, in making a donation, you are agreeing to the Privacy Policy of Democracy Engine, LLC, which can be found here.

Business Transfers. This Policy will apply to your Personal Information in the event that It Starts Today is involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or a sale of assets. However, your information may be transferred to another entity as part of that transaction.

MINORS

It Starts Today does not knowingly ask for or collect personally identifying information from children under the age of 13. If you become aware that your child has provided It Starts Today with Personal Information without your consent, please contact us at info@itstarts.today. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will take steps to remove such information and terminate the child’s use of the Site.

FEEDBACK

We value your opinions to make our site more useful and relevant. You may email us at any time with feedback, testimonials, suggestions and ideas about our products and services—or you may also provide such content through other means which we’ll call “Responses.” We may use any of your Responses in any way, without obligation to you.

ENFORCEMENT

It Starts Today is limited to users in the United States, so the privacy laws of the United States govern the use of our Site.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We reserve the right to change the provisions of this Policy at any time and will alert you to changes in this policy with an effective date at the bottom. Questions or comments regarding this Policy should be sent to info@itstarts.today.

Effective date of this version: January 27, 2017

Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT IS IT STARTS TODAY MISSOURI?

It Starts Today Missouri crowdsources support for Democratic statehouse nominees. We recognized that the Resistance has become an insurmountable force by helping people take regular, small steps - the effects of which are amplified because of the vast numbers of people taking them. We do that same thing - except with monthly donations that will be split among every single Democratic nominee for Missouri state legislature. So, really we’re just taking what’s already worked for the movement to oppose the Trump/Ryan/McConnell agenda and applying it to fundraise for Missouri’s Democratic nominees.

If you want to read more about our story and how we came up with the idea, check out our article in Daily Kos!

On the legal side, It Starts Today Missouri is a nonprofit registered as a PAC with the Missouri Ethics Commission. All contributions to It Starts Today Missouri are reported to the MEC quarterly and publicly disclosed on their website.

HOW DOES IT STARTS TODAY MISSOURI WORK?

In a nutshell: your donation to support Democratic nominees in Missouri is a donation to a seperate PAC called IST-MO NOMINEE PAC #1; IST-MO NOMINEE PAC #1 then makes donations to Democratic nominees. However, unlike most PACs, IST-MO NOMINEE PAC #1 exists for one purpose: to evenly fund every Democratic nominee for state legislature each election cycle. IST-MO NOMINEE PAC #1 donates directly to candidates and does not engage in "independent expenditures." Compliance for IST-MO NOMINEE PAC #1 is provided as an in-kind contribution by It Starts Today Missouri. This allows IST-MO NOMINEE PAC #1 to divvy up all available funds into 248 increments and give 1/248th to each nominee for the Missouri House of Representatives and 5/248ths to each Democratic nominee for the Missouri Senate. If there are fewer than 248 Democratic nominees, we'll adjust the math, but you get the idea.

And you will always be able to look up our filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission to make sure we're fulfilling our promises.

We can hear you do-it-yourselfers asking: Hey, if this is really just a way for me to save and organize funds now to donate after the primary, can’t I just do it myself? And the answer is - of course you can! But finding out who the nominees are, cutting individual checks and sending them to 248 campaigns - all in enough time for the candidates to be able to actually use the funds… Well, it’s a project. But this is what we do, and we’re happy to do it.

Donations to support and market this project are contributions to It Starts Today Missouri, a nonprofit Missouri PAC.

WHY INCREMENTS OF $2.48?

The simple answer is that recurring donations in increments of $2.48 make the math work. More specifically, there are 163 house and 17 senate seats up each election. Senate districts are five times as large as House districts, so we need to account for their larger size. A minimum donation is one penny for each house race and five pennies (or one nickel) to each senate race. So, we need to multiply the 17 senate seats by five, and then add the 163 house seats to the mix. To really nail down the math:
$0.5 x 17 Senate seats = $.85.
$0.01 x 163 House seats= $1.63
$.85 + $1.63 = $2.48.

WHEN WILL THE NOMINEES GET MY MONEY?

In general, each nominee will start to receive the money just after the primary election. After that first big lump sum, there are weekly distributions until the election.

We are hoping to be able to advance distributions in cases where there is only one declared candidate for the Democratic nomination. If we can make it work, in cases where only one person files for the Democratic primary, we’ll start distributions after the filing deadline instead of waiting until the primary. Early money is more valuable than late money and if there is only one Democrat, there is only one Democrat. (We will never, however, pick between Democrats in a contested primary.)

WHAT ABOUT CONTRIBUTION LIMITS?

Good question. We spent a lot of time figuring this all out and arrived at a very simple solution: do a lot of compliance filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Each PAC in Missouri is limited to donating $2,600 per nominee per election. This would mean that, when we reach our goal of providing ~$18k per state house nominee and ~$88k per state senate nominee, we'd need to set up 34 IST-MO NOMINEE PACs to handle all the money legally. And that's what we are going to do.

It's a lot of paperwork, but our co-Founder, Jonathan Zucker, is a campaign finance attorney and was the driving force behind getting ActBlue into all 50 states about a decade ago; he lives to solve these sorts of complex problems as efficiently as possible.

To answer a more personal question for each of you, because these are PAC donations, your personal donation limit to each nominee will not be impacted.

WHAT ABOUT FEES?

First off, 100% of your donations to IST-MO PAC #1 will go to Democratic nominees - so if you’re donating $2.48, that’s exactly what you’re donating. But, credit cards are not free and just like everyone else (including ActBlue and Kickstarter), we have to account for processing fees. It Starts Today relies on Democracy Engine, LLC, to process and distribute contributions. Jonathan Zucker (our founder) also founded Democracy Engine. But while that means he does have a financial interest in the success of this effort, the goal here is to save the world. So Democracy Engine charges you a lower rate than other sites you might know of, like ActBlue.

Democracy Engine collects a 3.75% + $0.20 processing fee on top of your contribution to the Democratic nominees. This sum covers both the processing fees—credit card, debit card, ACH, etc.—and costs of distribution to candidates. It also provides Democracy Engine with a small profit, which is required by campaign finance law. And just to compare: ActBlue collects 3.95% and Kickstarter keeps 5% on top of the processing fees.

Democracy Engine charges you low rates and has the services we need. So we're happy to work with them in our effort to crowdsource democracy, cut the GOP off at the knees, and make the country - and world - a better place.

All “tips” to It Starts Today itself go to the nonprofit PAC and will be spent building this concept into a movement.

ARE YOU PART OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY?

It Starts Today Missouri is independent. While we support the efforts of the Missouri Democratic Party, and they seem to love what we are doing, we are not them and our funds go directly to the nominees, not the party or the coordinate campaign; we have only one goal: break radical Republican control over the Statehouse.

CAN I HELP YOUR EFFORTS BEYOND MY SUBSCRIPTION?

Absolutely.

First and foremost, you can share what we are doing with your friends, family and fellow progressives (a post on Facebook or a tweet is great, but even better is sending personal e-mails to people you know care about Missouri).

Second, if you have the means, you can help our outreach efforts by funding them directly. For each $10 dollars we've raised to date, we can reach a new subscriber and each new subscriber will donate, on average, over $230 every 2 years to Democratic nominees. It's one heck of a return on investment. Just click here to make a donation.

WHEN WILL MY SUBSCRIPTION END?

You can end your subscription at any time by contacting us at missouri@itstarts.today.

WHAT IF I ONLY WANT TO FUND PRO-CHOICE NOMINEES?

While we firmly believe that every voter in Missouri is entitled to a well funded Democratic nominee (as selected by the Democratic voters of that district), we also understand that many within the party do not wish to fund pro-life Democrats. We have, therefore, created a pro-choice nominees only project: IST-MO Pro-Choice.

About Us

WHO IS BEHIND IT STARTS TODAY?

Glad you asked. The prime mover is Jonathan Zucker: a progressive campaign finance attorney and political technology entrepreneur who has been at the heart of some of the most innovative campaign finance initiatives of the last fifteen years.

Jonathan was the first employee of ActBlue, where he served as the first COO and second Executive Director (CEO) between 2005 and 2008. During his tenure, ActBlue grew from $870k in total donations to over $85 million. Before joining ActBlue, Jonathan was the national director of operations for finance at the Democratic National Committee, overseeing the infrastructure of the DNC’s (then) record-breaking $100-million major donor program during the 2004 election.

After leaving ActBlue, Jonathan founded Democracy Engine, LLC: a software platform that's all about executing complex political contributions (in compliance, of course, with applicable laws and regulations). In 2011, he joined Ruck.us as co-founder and COO, since 2013 he’s been serving as senior strategist and counsel to Crowdpac, and in 2014, he co-founded if.then.fund and progressive.fund.

Before getting into political technology, Jonathan took on the roles of field organizer, fundraiser, administrator, and attorney for a variety of progressive organizations, including the Interfaith Alliance, Human Rights Campaign, Color of Change, Genderpac, Democratic Leadership Council, and the Gill Foundation.

Jonathan has authored, commissioned, and/or consulted on several groundbreaking Advisory Opinions from the Federal Election Commission. He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Yale University.

Jonathan is joined by Jerald Lentini, a campaign veteran who has worked with dozens of Democratic campaigns and organizations such as the AFL-CIO, Ready for Warren, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee; Caitlin Howarth, an experienced organizer and strategist who has worked with the Truman National Security Project, the New Leaders Council, and the Roosevelt Institute, among other groups; Laura Duncombe, a writer, organizer, and mother whose work can be found on Jezebel and who has been knocking doors for Democrats since 2008; and Ben Resnik, a Democratic operative with experience in startups at the intersection of politics and tech, including Ruck.us, if.then.fund, and DSPolitical.

Why Are You Doing This?

The one thing on which everyone opposed to Trump and this radical GOP Congress can agree is that we need a Congress that's going to work for the people, and not just rubber stamp the Trump agenda. To do that, Democrats need to take back Congress. There is strength in numbers and we need to replace as many Republicans with Democrats as possible in the 2018 midterm elections.

We know that to win those races, Democrats are going to need money.

And we believe in the profound power of large numbers of people making small, monthly, contributions.

Directly funding every Democratic nominee for Congress in 2018 is not the only thing people should be doing to resist Trump and the radical GOP Congress, but it is a simple, easy thing that all of us who can afford to do should be doing along with everything else. It Starts Today makes that possible.

We hope you will join us in this effort.

Press

PRESS

You can read about It Starts Today in the following articles (we’re just getting started, so expect this list to grow):